**Chapter 13: The Echo of Rust and Ruin**
Vagrant's Hope was a lie. There was no hope here. There was only survival, negotiated one grimy, blood-stained credit at a time.
It was not a city, but a cancerous growth clinging to the skeletal remains of its host. The host was the *Stellarch-Maximus*, a derelict Ark Mechanicus from the deepest night of the Dark Age of Technology. It was a vessel so gargantuan that its broken, cathedral-like superstructure blotted out the stars of the Ghostwind Nebula. It had been lost for twenty thousand years, a ghost ship adrift in a cosmic graveyard, until rogue traders had stumbled upon it five centuries ago and, seeing not a relic but real estate, had begun the slow, parasitic process of colonization.
Now, it was the largest free-port in the Halo Stars. A haven for pirates, smugglers, mercenaries, rogue psykers, disgraced nobles, hereteks, and every other brand of outcast who had slipped through the cracks of the Imperium. It was a city of rust and ruin, of flickering neon signs casting lurid glows on corroded iron bulkheads, of narrow, crowded corridors that stank of recycled air, cheap synth-ale, and unfulfilled desperation. It was a place where a life was worth less than a fully charged power pack.
It was the perfect place to start an army.
The *Argent Oath*, accompanied by its sleek, silent escort, *The Quietude*, translated from the Immaterium into realspace at the edge of the nebula. The sudden appearance of a fifty-foot war-machine and a vessel of completely unknown design sent an immediate, frantic shockwave through the city's chaotic network of freelance augur-scanners and long-range sentries.
Within minutes, a dozen different voices were trying to hail them. Hissing, static-laced vox-channels crackled to life in the Knight's cockpit.
*"Unidentified vessel, this is Captain Boross of the free-hauler 'Gilded Grift.' State your designation and intentions or my gun-servitors will get nervous."*
*"This is Guild-Mistress Anya of the Void-Carvers. Your ship's energy signature is… unique. We are prepared to offer a generous price for a scan of your reactor core. Name your price."*
*"Greetings, travelers! This is the melodious voice of Vox-Lord Silas, broadcasting live from the Spire of Whispers! We have a new player at the table, folks! A big one! What mysteries do you bring to our humble abode of sin and secrets?"*
Likas listened to the cacophony, a faint, amused smile on his lips. This was the raw, unfiltered voice of humanity when it was unshackled from the dogmatic fist of the Imperium. It was greedy, chaotic, and gloriously, stubbornly alive.
He ignored their hails. A grand entrance required a measure of mystique.
With Kaelen at the helm, the *Argent Oath* and *The Quietude* began their slow, deliberate approach towards the main docking bay of Vagrant's Hope—a colossal, gaping maw in the side of the derelict Ark, large enough to swallow a cruiser whole. It was called the 'Maw of Rust.' A swarm of smaller, uglier ships buzzed around it like flies on a carcass.
As they drew closer, the full, breathtaking scale of the city became apparent. Entire districts were built into the cavernous engine nacelles of the ancient Ark. Shanty towns of scavenged metal and plasteel clung precariously to its outer hull. Great, crackling energy tethers, siphoning power from the Ark's still-beating, impossibly old reactor, arced between different sections of the derelict, forming a web of stolen light.
His two companions reacted to the sight in their own unique ways.
*…a city of scavengers… jackals feasting on the bones of a lion…* Cassia's thought was one of pure, aristocratic disdain. To her, a being from the era of the Great Crusade's shining ideals, this place was an affront.
Kaelen's reaction was a wave of something akin to nostalgia. *…like the under-hives of my homeworld…full of desperation, but also…opportunity. A good place to hire a killer or lose a tail.* The broken noble knew the scent of the underworld.
The ANITO Protocol, however, saw it for what it was. *Optimal recruitment environment. High concentration of specialized assets with flexible moral parameters and a low degree of loyalty to external factions. Population possesses advanced survival skills and a high tolerance for risk. A target-rich environment.*
"My thoughts exactly," Likas murmured.
They reached the Maw of Rust. The motley collection of patrol craft and pirate vessels that guarded the entrance moved to intercept them, their weapons bristling. A larger ship, a heavily modified Imperial Sword-class frigate painted with the leering skull-and-crossbones of a pirate kingpin, moved to block their path.
A new voice, deeper and more menacing than the others, filled their cockpit. *"This is the 'Crimson Cull,' acting under the authority of the Iron Council of Vagrant's Hope. You are an unsanctioned war-machine. You are not welcome here. Turn back, or we will turn you into scrap."*
Likas decided it was time to make his introduction. He didn't respond with words. He reached out with his will, and a command was sent to *The Quietude*.
The sleek, dark vessel, which had been hanging back silently, moved. It did not move like a normal ship, accelerating with its thrusters. It simply… was no longer there, and was now here. It folded space, performing a short-range, instantaneous jump that placed it directly behind the *Crimson Cull*. No flash of light, no reality-warp. Just a silent, impossible repositioning.
The pirate crew of the *Crimson Cull* didn't even have time to react before *The Quietude* revealed a fraction of its power. A thin, hair-like beam of black light shot from a hidden emitter on the scout ship's prow. It did not explode on impact. It touched the *Crimson Cull's* primary shield generator. The generator, and the five-meter-thick section of armored hull around it, did not melt or vaporize. It simply… vanished. Ceased to be. Erased from reality with surgical precision.
A wave of panic and disbelief washed over the vox-channels. The threatening posture of the patrol craft evaporated. The *Crimson Cull*, its shields down and a perfect, silent hole in its flank, began to back away slowly.
Now, Likas opened his own channel, broadcasting on all frequencies. His voice, amplified by the Knight's systems and tinged with the dual-frequency resonance of his power, boomed across the void.
"I am Likas," he announced, his tone calm and absolute. "I have come to Vagrant's Hope seeking soldiers, not scrap metal. The next ship that points its weapons at me will be unwritten from this reality. You may inform your 'Iron Council' that I will be waiting for them in Docking Bay Gamma-7. They have one hour to send a welcoming party. I suggest they choose their representatives wisely."
He cut the channel, leaving a stunned, profound silence in his wake. Then, ignoring the scattering patrol craft, he guided the *Argent Oath* into the Maw of Rust, the silent, terrifying form of *The Quietude* following like a loyal shadow.
Docking Bay Gamma-7 was a cavernous, poorly-lit chamber half a mile long. The air was a thick soup of leaking plasma fumes, spilled promethium, and the metallic tang of welding. The floor was a chaotic mess of discarded machinery, tangled power cables, and shady-looking figures conducting illicit deals in the shadows. When the fifty-foot war-machine and its alien escort landed, the entire bay fell silent. Every eye was on them.
Likas did not exit the Knight. He simply had it kneel, a gesture of immense, controlled power, and waited. The sixty minutes he had given the Iron Council were not just a threat; they were a test. A test of their intelligence, their pragmatism, and their speed of response.
He used the time to deploy his own form of intelligence gathering. While he waited, the ANITO Protocol was performing a silent, deep-level hack of Vagrant's Hope's entire data-network. It was a chaotic, jury-rigged system, full of backdoors and competing firewalls. For the Golden Age AI residing in Likas's soul, it was like breaking into a child's piggy bank.
Information flooded his mind. The names and histories of the seven members of the Iron Council—a disgraced Mechanicus Magos, a xenos mercenary of a species long thought extinct, a powerful rogue psyker, a pirate queen, a renegade Imperial Guard general, a shadowy spymaster, and the head of the assassins' guild. He learned of the city's power struggles, its black markets, its hidden resources. He learned of a fighting pit in the under-levels known as the 'Crucible,' where warriors fought to the death for fame and fortune. He learned of a community of exiled Navigators, their third eyes sealed, who sold their limited predictive services to the highest bidder.
He was mapping the entire ecosystem of this lawless place, identifying assets, threats, and opportunities before he had even spoken to a single inhabitant.
Fifty-eight minutes after his arrival, the welcoming party arrived. It was not a squad of heavily armed enforcers, but a single, strange procession.
Leading them was a hulking figure in deep crimson robes. A Mechanicus Magos, his flesh almost entirely replaced by clanking, piston-driven machinery. His face was a polished brass mask with a multitude of whirring lenses for eyes. This was Magos-Errant Tiberion, the tech-heretic who kept the city's ancient systems from collapsing.
Beside him walked a tall, impossibly slender xenos. Its skin was a pale, chitinous blue, and it had four arms, each ending in a wickedly sharp talon. It wore the flowing, tattered robes of a Kroot Shaper, but it was no Kroot. It was a Sslyth, a rare, serpentine mercenary species known for their loyalty to whomever paid them most. This was Xylar, the enforcer of the Council.
And floating just behind them, seated in a humming, ornate palanquin carried by four hulking, gene-bulked servitors, was the rogue psyker. She was a woman of indeterminate age, her eyes covered by a simple black sash, her face serene. But Likas could feel the immense, disciplined psychic power radiating from her, a controlled inferno that dwarfed any psyker he had ever encountered outside of an Inquisitorial Black Ship. This was the Oracle Anya.
They stopped fifty feet from the kneeling Knight. It was Magos Tiberion who spoke, his voice a distorted, metallic rasp.
"
Likas did not answer immediately. He had the cockpit of the *Argent Oath* open. He stood, a giant in black, and leaped from the Knight's chassis, landing softly on the grimy floor of the docking bay. The assembled crowd of onlookers gasped. The sheer physical presence of him was overwhelming.
He walked towards the council members, his every step radiating a calm, absolute confidence.
"My purpose is simple, Magos Tiberion," Likas said, his voice resonating with its unique power. "I am here to hire an army."
The blind Oracle Anya smiled, a faint, knowing expression. "The galaxy is full of armies for hire, giant. Why come to this forsaken place?"
"Because the armies of the Imperium fight for a lie, and the armies of the Abyss fight for a nightmare," Likas replied, his gaze sweeping over the three of them. "I am looking for those who fight for themselves. For freedom. For profit. For survival. I am looking for pragmatists."
He stopped before them, towering over even the hulking Magos. "I am launching a new war. Not a war of conquest, but a war of liberation. I intend to strike at the heart of the Chaos warbands that plague this sector. I intend to raid their forge worlds, liberate their slave pens, and steal their resources. It will be a war of immense risk, and unimaginable profit."
The Sslyth, Xylar, hissed, a sound like dry leaves skittering across stone. "Many have come to Vagrant's Hope with grand plansss. Mosst leave as dissembodied headsss in a sssack. What makes you different?"
"This," Likas said. He raised a hand, and a small, perfect sphere of silver-gold light, a miniature star, bloomed in his palm. It pulsed with a power that made the air grow warm, a power that was neither holy nor profane, but something utterly new. It was the light of a potential new age.
The Oracle Anya gasped, her serene expression breaking. Though blind, she could see the light with her psychic senses, and what she saw left her breathless. "The… the Echo of Genesis… the old prophecies spoke of it. The spark that would relight the stars. I thought it was just a myth."
"The myths are real," Likas said. "And so is my offer. I need soldiers, pilots, spies, and technicians. I need ships to build a fleet. I will pay in weapons from forge worlds no one has heard of in ten thousand years. I will pay in raw materials and technologies that will make this city the new center of power in this quadrant of the galaxy. All I ask in return is loyalty. Not to a creed or a god, but to the mission. And to me."
He let his offer hang in the air, a challenge and a promise. He had bypassed the posturing and the politics and gone straight to the heart of what made Vagrant's Hope tick: ambition.
Magos Tiberion's optical lenses whirred furiously. "
"The price of admission to my war council," Likas said smoothly, "is a demonstration of your own value. I have need of a specific asset. A ship. A fast, powerful frigate, heavily armed, with a crew that is not afraid of the dark. Find me such a ship and such a crew. Arrange a meeting. If they impress me, they will become the first flagship of my new fleet. And you, the Iron Council, will have proven yourselves worthy partners."
He had turned the tables completely. He was no longer the outsider seeking entrance. He was the client, and they were the contractors.
The Oracle Anya smiled again, a genuine, dangerous expression this time. "A test. I like him. He understands the language of this place." She turned her blindfolded gaze towards the darkest corner of the docking bay. "It seems you have a volunteer already."
Likas followed her gaze. A figure was detaching itself from the shadows. It was a woman, tall and lean, clad in the scarred, midnight-blue flak armor of a Void-born pirate. A pair of ornate, archeotech pistols were strapped to her thighs, and a long, wicked-looking power blade was slung across her back. Her face was sharp, intelligent, with a web of faded tribal tattoos across one cheek and a cybernetic eye that glowed a soft, menacing crimson. She walked with the easy, predatory grace of a born killer.
She strode forward, her crew of equally disreputable-looking voidsmen falling into step behind her. She stopped before Likas, craning her neck to look up at him, utterly unintimidated.
"I heard you were looking for a fast ship and a crew that isn't afraid of the dark," she said, her voice a low, smoky drawl laced with the clipped accent of a hive-world noble. "Captain Ishaela 'the Ghost' Vorn, at your service. My ship, the *Nightfall*, is the fastest thing in this nebula. And my crew… well, we've danced in hells you haven't even dreamed of, giant."
She grinned, a flash of white teeth in the gloom. "You want to start a war? You want to make a profit? I'm listening. But my loyalty, and my ship, have a price. Prove to me you're worth following, and I'll follow you into the Eye of Terror itself."
Likas looked down at the pirate captain. He saw the ambition, the greed, the ruthlessness. But he also saw a spark of something else. A flicker of a lost nobility, a desire for something more than just survival. She was another broken piece of the galaxy, waiting to be reforged.
He returned her grin. "Captain Vorn. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful partnership."
The first piece of his new army had just fallen into place.